The Aviary Gate (41 page)

‘Is it still there?'

‘No. The house became a public house in 1787, and then was demolished altogether in the 1890s to make way for the extension of what is now Liverpool Street Station. The façade's in the V&A though – one day I'll go and have a look.'

‘OK, OK, I get the picture.' Eve seemed exasperated. ‘But I don't see how any of this gets you any nearer to finding out what happened to Celia Lamprey.'

‘Well, it doesn't – not directly, anyway,' Elizabeth said. ‘I started trying to call up images of Pindar's house, and amazingly there are some. Someone has taken the trouble to put something called
Smith's Antiquities of London, 1791
online, and, bingo, there it was – not only the house itself but also the lodge of the original park surrounding the house, which apparently still existed then in a place called Half-Moon Alley. “Persons now living,”' Elizabeth read out the caption, ‘“remember the mulberry trees and other vestiges of the park near it.”'

‘So? He had a grand house with a garden. Bishopsgate was just outside the old city walls, and in the late sixteenth century the whole area would still have been largely fields and countryside.'

‘But don't you see? It says that the house was built in 1600, that's only the year after the merchants presented the Sultan with the organ. We know Pindar was in Constantinople until at least 1599 because Thomas Dallam mentions him in his diary; he was one of the two secretaries who accompanied the ambassador when he finally went to present his credentials. But the point is that his house wasn't just any old house; it was an enormous great mansion, on a par with those of Thomas Gresham and other great London financiers. But if he were on his own – still a bachelor, with no wife and family – why would he have built something so big?'

‘Um, because he was very rich?' Eve said. ‘You said so yourself. Pindar was the original merchant banker – what else was he going to do with his money? I thought that was what the Elizabethans were all about: ostentation and extravagance.'

‘But that's just it, he wasn't either of those things.' Elizabeth thought of the portrait, the man with his chaste black velvet doublet. ‘You make him sound like some awful
nouveau
, when he wasn't anything of the kind. He was a gentleman, a scholar.'

‘He might have been gay,' Eve countered. ‘Oh come on, all those sumptuous interiors!'

‘I don't think so,' Elizabeth said, ‘a house like that is about the future, about posterity, surely. Something to be handed down to the next generation.'

‘He might have married someone else. Have you ever considered that?'

‘Of course I have,' Elizabeth pressed the fingers of one hand to her eyes, ‘I've considered every possibility there is. But no, he never loved anyone else but her. Celia escaped, I'm sure of it.'

Elizabeth glanced up, and saw through the window of her room the view down over the Golden Horn and towards the palace: a grandstand view of old Constantinople, the very same view that the Levant Company merchants would have seen from their houses in Galata. How strange that she had hardly noticed it when she first arrived. In just a few weeks the whole room had become so familiar to her that she hardly saw it any more, and now for a fraction of a moment she suddenly saw it again as she had then: the bare dipping floorboards, the twin beds, as chaste and neat as a ship's cabin.

Eve was saying something again.

‘Sorry, what was that?'

‘I said: it's all very well to say that but you've got no evidence.' Eve emphasised the last three words slowly.

‘Well there's no need to speak to me as if I were a complete idiot. I can't explain why, but I just
know
,' Elizabeth snapped suddenly. ‘And I don't
need
any evidence. Not for this.'

The words were out before she could stop them. For a moment there was silence on the line.

‘For a DPhil thesis?' Eve's voice sounded terse. ‘I rather think that you do.'

‘What I mean is …' Elizabeth sighed. ‘Oh hell, what do I mean?' she said, almost to herself. ‘Have you ever … have you ever had the sense that the past is speaking to you?'

There was a pause.

‘Not in the deluded way that you seem to think it does.' Eve muttered.

Elizabeth was silenced.

‘You sound tired.' Eve said eventually.

‘It's true …' Elizabeth rubbed her hand over her eyes again. ‘I haven't been sleeping very well.'

There was another pause.

‘Is there something else? Marius hasn't tried to get in touch with you, has he?' Eve said after a while. ‘I heard he's telephoned the college a couple of times.'

‘Marius?' Elizabeth almost laughed. ‘No.'

The image came to her, not of Marius, but of Mehmet.
Delete Marius
. Was it possible that she actually had?

‘Well, that's something.'

There was another awkward pause.

‘OK then, I'd better go.'

‘OK then.'

‘Bye.'

‘Bye.'

Elizabeth lay on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. What was wrong with her? That was the closest she had ever come to having a row with Eve. She could have told her about Mehmet, but she hadn't – why not? She, who always told Eve everything. She rolled over and picked up her mobile from the bedside table, called up the photographs that she had taken the day before, gazed at his profile, the sculpted nose, what wouldn't she give now to see him in the flesh, to hear his voice. But he was away, had gone to Ankara on business, would be away for two whole days.

Elizabeth turned her phone off and lay back on the bed. In the distance, through the darkness outside her window, she could hear the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

She closed her eyes. It was true that she was tired. She had hardly slept last night for thinking about Mehmet. Her sleep, such as it was, had been shallow and feverish. Sometimes she was back in the hammam, that morning when she had imagined his eyes on her naked body. Other times she replayed in her mind that moment when he had taken her hand in the restaurant, felt again the touch of his thumb on the delicate skin of her wrist.

On the return journey they had stood close together, their bodies not touching, but so close that she was aware of his breath against her neck.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're shivering again?'

‘No, really …'

‘Sure?' He reached over to tuck a strand of long hair behind her ear.

‘Quite sure.'

‘Look, there's something here that I want to show you.'

He had pointed to a row of stately wooden houses overhanging the water on a little bay. ‘These are the
yalis
that I was telling you about. See this one here,' he pointed to one of the largest ones, its wooden walls painted russet-brown, ‘this is what Haddba wanted me to show you.'

‘It's beautiful,' Elizabeth said. ‘Who does it belong to?'

‘My family.' Mehmet replied. ‘One of my great-aunts, my grandmother's youngest sister, still lives there, but she's away in Europe for the winter.' He looked at her carefully. ‘I will bring you here one day. If you like.'

They motored on in silence for a while. The sun, which was low on the horizon now, had gone in behind the clouds. A flock of cormorants flew past them, low on the water.

‘Are you afraid?' he asked her.

‘No,' she had said.

‘That's good.' He turned to her. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of, you know that, don't you?'

‘Yes,' Elizabeth had nodded. ‘I know.'

And so she had dozed on fitfully through the night, thinking about him. There were times when she was not sure whether she was dreaming or awake. At one point in the night she thought she heard her door bang open, the sound of footsteps running suddenly into the room. Elizabeth had sat up with a cry.

The shadow of a young woman – her hair dishevelled, pearls at her neck – stood over her.

She heard a voice – was it her own? – cry out.

Celia?

But there was no one there.

It was not until two days after finding Handan that Celia had a chance to speak to Annetta again. She found her friend alone, sitting up amongst her cushions. Although she still looked pale, she was fully dressed, her hair neatly combed and braided.

‘You look better.'

‘And you look terrible.' Annetta ran her eye critically over Celia, and then enquiringly over her shoulder out into the corridor beyond. ‘Where are your women today?'

Celia lowered her eyes. ‘The Harem Stewardess said she wanted them for some other job.'

‘Does that mean you are no longer
gözde?
' Annetta said, not mincing her words.

‘So it would seem.' Celia thought of the Sultan, the heavy pale flesh, the little goatee beard, the hanging jowls. She remembered Hanza's frail form, rising and falling on top of him, and the strange little hiccoughing sounds she had made, like a child trying not to cry. ‘And I don't care what you say,' she gripped Annetta's hand suddenly, ‘I'm not sorry for it.'

‘It's all right.'

‘And I expect I'll be back in here with you before long,' Celia looked round her at the little windowless dormitory that Annetta shared with five other
cariye
, ‘and I won't be sorry for that, either.'

‘We'll stick together,' Annetta squeezed her hand again, ‘whatever happens, now more than ever.'

‘Yes, we must,' Celia looked at her, ‘which is why you must tell me what really happened the night that Hassan—'

‘
Madonna
, not that again!' Annetta lay back on her cushions, the good humour draining from her face. ‘Why can't you just forget about it?'

‘Forget about it? You agreed to tell me! “No more secrets,” you said, remember? Do you think it's just going to go away all on its own? Well, it's not. If Hassan Aga really did see you there, then you're in as much trouble as I am.' Celia was whispering now. ‘Shh! What's that?'

‘What? I don't hear anything.'

‘Wait a moment.' Celia ran over to the door, glancing quickly down the corridors on each side, and out into the Courtyard of the Cariyes. There was no one in sight. When she came back her face was pale. ‘They've been through my things, I'm sure of it. Wherever I go, I can feel them watching me, listening. All the time. Even people I thought I could trust – Gulbahar … Hyacinth … all of them. You've no idea what it's been like. I don't know who anyone is any more.'

‘Why? Because of the sugar ship? But they've proved that had nothing to do with the poisoning …'

‘Have they? I'm not so sure. I keep thinking about it, Annetta: suppose they've found out about Paul, supposing he's in danger now too?' Celia pressed her hand to her side, to where a pain nagged constantly now. ‘Annetta, it's not over yet: the ship had my name on it!' The feeling of breathlessness had started to come over her again. ‘Look, we don't have much time. Just tell me what you saw. Believe me, this isn't going to go away by itself.'

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I think it
is
our best chance – that we let this whole thing just go away by itself. Which it will, so long as some busybody doesn't go around stirring things up again,' Annetta snapped, glaring at her. ‘The fact is, nothing
has
happened.' She sat up again. ‘They've found who did it, Hanza or the Haseki, or both of them, who knows, and I'm sorry for it,' she added, half-grudgingly, ‘because I know you liked her, the Haseki that is. But if Hassan Aga had seen me there he would have said something by now. You think I haven't thought this through? No one has said anything, and no one is going to – now can we just leave it?'

‘You wouldn't say that if you'd been there. It was terrible, Annetta – I was there when they were taken.' Celia held out her wrist. The Haseki's bracelet, little chips of blue and black glass, glittered dully. ‘The Chief Black Eunuch was poisoned, and two women are dead because of it. They tied them up in sacks and threw them into the Bosphorous. Imagine it …' She fingered the glass beads, feeling their smoothness against her fingers. ‘The fact that Hassan Aga hasn't said anything about you might be a good sign, perhaps he didn't see you after all. Or it might mean that he's just waiting for the right moment. Because that's what they do in here, remember? They watch and they wait, you taught me that yourself.'

Annetta rolled over, lay with her back to Celia, trying not to hear her.

‘The Haseki was trying to tell me something, but she never got the chance to finish her story,' Celia said, shaking Annetta by the shoulder. ‘You think that Esperanza Malchi put the Evil Eye on you – but I don't think she's got anything to do with this. There's someone else involved. The Haseki said as much – someone much more dangerous.'

‘In that case, all the more reason for you to leave well alone,' Annetta said, her face still turned towards the wall.

‘I can't. Not now.'

There was a long silence.

‘You've done it, haven't you?' Annetta said, rolling over at last.

‘What?'

‘Don't act the innocent with me. You've been to the Aviary Gate, haven't you?'

Celia blinked rapidly, there was no use denying it, certainly not to Annetta. ‘No one saw me.'

‘You think so?' Annetta closed her eyes despairingly. ‘I can't believe I'm hearing this.'

‘Then I think there's something else you should hear, too.'

Quickly Celia told her about Handan, and her discoveries of two nights ago. Annetta heard her out in complete silence. When she spoke at last, her voice was an angry hiss.